


Answers

by phantomlimbs (orphan_account)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Implied Character Death, M/M, Possible trigger warning for suicide maybe??, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-03-03
Packaged: 2017-12-04 04:10:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/706388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/phantomlimbs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Karkat can’t bear to think about Dave being dead but having him be alive yet unreachable is even worse." Everyone ends up on Earth after the game, and Karkat and Dave meet for the first time in what has been entirely too long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Answers

The end of the game sends the kids back to Earth.

They wake up in an unfamiliar field, during midday, wearing the clothes they started out with. They are seemingly unchanged other than their ages and once the shock wears off they celebrate the fact that they’re alive and together. They don’t know what happened to the trolls but they try not to dwell on the memories, and instead point their faces forward. They refuse to let the tear stains on their clothes stop their feet from moving as they make their way to the city.

The four know firsthand that sometimes there isn’t time for mourning.

Years later, Dave marries Jade. They have a daughter they name after Rose. Life goes on as simply as they manage to make it.

Dave loves both his girls more than anything but love isn’t enough to patch up the wounds their game left behind. Sometimes he wakes up in a cold sweat, his sheets tangled around his feet, with the terrified faces of his friends vanishing in a flash in front of him. He remembers Karkat's outstretched hand, his yellow eyeballs huge and shining in his fear, remembers the way he only had time to grasp feebly at Karkat’s fingers before he was sucked in. He misses all the trolls, his friends, but doesn’t hesitate to admit that he misses Karkat the most.

Some things don’t need saying but Dave wishes he had the time to decide if he wanted to.

-

Karkat lives alone.

Earth is difficult to manage, especially by himself, but he’s been through too much to give up now. He gets an apartment on the low-rent side of town and gets a shitty restaurant job to pay for it. The absence of his friends is a constant ache in his chest, a relentless weight that rests on his shoulders and curves his spine, but he manages the best he can. He is a leader with nobody to lead but himself and he’s determined not to mess it up.

Years pass. His resolve wavers. He wonders where his friends have gone.

He catches snippets of news stories, word of mouth. Terezi passes away in hospital after being hit by a car. Sollux is involved in a massive software virus scam that bankrupts half of Texas and kills several. He is charged with manslaughter and gets the electric chair. 

Part of his mind knows that there’s no way either of them could have let this happen unless they wanted it to. Karkat spends many nights lying awake, trying desperately to silence his mind with bad television that only leadens his eyelids and deepens his loneliness.

After some time Karkat stops trying to find them. He prefers to pretend they’re alive and happy.

He can’t stop thinking of Dave. A flutter of a red skirt he mistakes for a cape as he waits on a table at work at makes him freeze mid-step. He keeps his eyes down as he walks down the street on sunny days, for glimpses of sunglasses send a shock down his spine. Karkat can’t bear to think about Dave being dead but having him be alive yet unreachable is even worse. 

Part of Karkat holds onto the hope that Dave’s alive and here, even though he knows he should move on and forget. Much of the past several years have faded into repressed memories, even if his old friends sometimes haunt his dreams in ghost copies of dream bubbles.

It’s been years and years since it was updated, but Karkat checks Dave’s blog every week.

He searches phone books, news stories, magazines, for a mention, a sign. He doesn’t put it past Dave to make it big even after all they’ve been through. 

He looks to the sky, so different from the Alternian one he grew up with, and searches for answers in the clouds. He knows none will come but he can’t let himself stop trying.

He finally finds out by accident, through a coworker who’d been stationed in British Columbia that summer. The Striders are friends of the family.

Karkat calls that night.

They hear each others voices for the first time in years and cannot speak, and then speak suddenly all at once. Karkat instantly forgets the lines he spent hours rehearsing in front of the bathroom mirror and breaks down.

He cant stop the tears rolling down his face and he hears Dave laughing in disbelief on the other end.

“I’ve missed you, Vantas,” says a quiet voice. It shakes, almost inaudibly. A sniff, a laugh. Familiar, kind. Karkat closes his eyes and lets the tears fall.

“I missed you too.”

They talk for hours and arrange to meet that week, as soon as Dave can arrange to take time off work. Karkat lives in New York City and dave lives in Victoria, but they agree to meet halfway. Karkat would have walked if he had to. Part of him believes that Dave would have too.

Jade kisses Dave goodbye and he tells Rose to be a good girl while he’s gone. Don’t worry, he’ll only be a few days. Dave takes the family car and promises lots of Skype calls while he’s there, maybe even featuring Karkat if he's up for it. Jade watches the car pull out of the driveway and wipes the tears off her face with the back of her hand. Karkat was her friend too.

Karkat packs almost everything he has. He says goodbye mentally to the tiny apartment he lives in and tells the dishwasher girl he made friends with at his work to take his place.

 He quits his job shortly after.

The bus ride takes several days, but Karkat doesn’t mind. He’s been waiting for years, so some extra time doesn't bother him. He stares out the window at the clouds and realizes that he finally found the answers he’d been searching for.

The bus stops in the station at 12:18 in the morning. Dave had arranged the bus schedules and they agreed to meet at nine but there was heavy traffic on the interstate that they hadn’t been prepared for. Karkat is tired but hadn’t been able to sleep over the pounding of his own heart as he neared his destination.

He steps off the bus and walks the station in search of Dave, swallowing the fear in his throat, telling himself that Dave wouldn’t just leave him, that he waited. 

His fingers tighten into fists around the straps of his backpack. He walks for ten minutes, fifteen. The familiar feeling of panic rises in his throat but he swallows it down, tells himself it’s okay.

Karkat passes station 2B and in the corner of his eye spots a blond head resting on the back of a seat. His steps quicken.

Dave is asleep with his head tipped back over the seat behind him. He’s visibly older and taller and yet still so Dave, dressed in business clothes, empty coffee cup in the seat beside him and his coat draped over the armrest.

He’s different, but he’s here.

Later on Karkat doesn’t recall tapping Dave’s shoulder to wake him up but he must have because suddenly Dave is in his arms. He's pulling him close and his arms squeeze almost too tight, wanting desperately to be closer than his body will allow, and Karkat's tears are dripping on the back of Dave’s shirt and for the first time in his life he doesn’t feel alone.

**Author's Note:**

> I was originally going to make it more obvious that Karkat was planning suicide but in the end I couldn't force myself to write it that way OnO


End file.
